Headquarters: Faith in Canada 150

DECEMBER 2015 | Faith is a good in our
society, although you might not know it from
the headlines today. We have grown forgetful
of the contribution faith has made to our country,
its institutions, and our common life. For
more than 450 years, faith has shaped the
human landscape of Canada: it has shaped how
we imagine our life together, and it has given
shape to a country that stands apart in a world
deeply scarred by conflict, prejudice, and brutality.
This is the story that Cardus, through
the Faith in Canada 150 initiative, will tell.

Faith finds itself in story. The great religions
of the world express themselves in the full
abundance of storytelling forms: long narrative
poems, personal histories, parables, proverb
collections, tales from the immediate long
ago. The story is the house where the truth of
faith lives and can be called upon.

In the beginning, 150 years ago, when Canada
began its process of Confederation, we were
almost exclusively a house of Christian faith,
divided into separate dwellings for Catholicism
and Protestantism. But the story isn't so neat
and tidy. There were, of course, vibrant and
abundant faiths among the many First Nations
people across the landmass as well. Where
they were not actively suppressed, they were
cast out by those going about the business of
founding a nineteenth-century nation-state.

Faith in Canada 150 seeks to reframe the narrative,
not with reproach, but by reconnecting
Canadians with the reality that faith is still
alive today as an energetic, positive source of
celebration. As the old spiritual has it, there
is a balm in Gilead. Renewal, revitalization,
and uplift can be found in refreshing the story
of faith in Canada.

In order to galvanize such a broad public conversation,
and as a way to live out our commitments
to faith communities across Canada,
Cardus is planning a set of compelling initiatives
that will enable Canadians to reengage
stories of faith. These events, both local and
national in scope and designed for the general
public as well as specific groups, will center
on five program areas: events, publishing,
research, media, and the web. They will feature
public celebrations in Toronto, Ottawa, and
Vancouver, and they will invest heavily in the
intellectual and cultural foundations of
Canadian society, with endeavours such as a
photography exhibition, a new major
Canadian poetry prize, and a national conference
that gathers Canada's greatest minds to
explore religion in our common life.

At the end of Canada's sesquicentennial year,
Faith in Canada 150 will have acted as a vital
source of robust, eloquent, engaging conversation
about the importance of the sacred,
the transcendent, the religious in the life of
our country.

GregPennoyer was the Director of Faith in Canada 150, a Cardus program. Greg has a passion for igniting public dialogue on the topic of spirituality and the human condition. As Executive Director of The Humanitas Group, Greg co-lead the development of an art exhibition that probed the question of what it means to be human. He has also produced two books of reflection and art that continue on that theme.